December's Consumer Reports: Gadgets, Gear, and Hospice & Palliative Care

The December issue of Consumer reports is truly amazing. It’s filled with articles to help consumers find the right headphones, smart phones, and smart watches. One hot new piece of gear that is rated quite highly by consumer reports in this issue is something you may have heard about once or twice before, Hospice and Palliative Care.

You can access the for free all of the articles on their website at this link. This is a really well thought out webpage that is written by consumers, for consumers and includes the following resources:

The story of Paul Scheier's life and death: The website includes a 17 minute long video that discusses the importance of hospice and palliative medicine, addresses myths often connected to these programs, and includes a tear shedding journey of Paul’s life and death.
A guide on how to pick a hospice
Advice about advance directives including a link to an app by the American Bar Association called My Health Care Wishes (Android and iOS) that lets you store advance directives and related legal documents on your mobile device.
A section on "when things go wrong" that includes a link to the American Geriatrics Society's Health in Aging Foundation to help consumers find a geriatrician!

by: Eric Widera (@ewidera)

Comments

MaryAnn Misenhimer said…

Eric, Great review. I just got my CR yesterday. My only criticism is, "They buried (pun NOT intentional) the lead!!" NO reference at all to H & PC till you get inside. That said, it will certainly help get the word further out. Thanks.

November 5, 2014 at 11:21 AM

Practical Advice for the End of Life: A Podcast with BJ Miller

This week we talk with BJ Miller, hospice and palliative care physician, public speaker, and now author with Shoshana Berger of the book "A Beginner's Guide to the End."

As we note on the podcast, BJ is about as close as we get to a celebrity in Hospice and Palliative Care. His TED Talk "What Really Matters at the End of Life" has been viewed more than 9 million times. As we discuss on the Podcast, this has changed BJ's life, and he spends most of his working time engaged in public speaking, being the public "face" of the hospice and palliative care movement.

The book he and Berger wrote is filled to the brim with practical advice. I mean, nuts and bolts practical advice. Things like:
How to clean out not only your emotional house but your physical house (turns out there are services for that!)Posting about your illness on social media (should you post to Facebook)What is the difference between a funeral home and mortuaryCan I afford to die? …

Improving Advance Care Planning for Latinos with Cancer: A Podcast with Fischer and Fink

In this week's GeriPal podcast we talk with Stacy Fischer, MD and Regina Fink, RN, PhD, both from the University of Colorado, about a lay health navigator intervention to improve advance care planning with Latinos with advanced cancer. The issue of lay health navigators raises several issues that we discuss, including:
What is a lay health navigator?What do they do? How are they trained?What do lay health navigators offer that specialized palliative care doesn't? Are they replacing us?What makes the health navigator intervention particularly appropriate for Latinos and rural individuals? For advance care planning? Eric and I had fun singing in French (yes French, not Spanish, listen to the podcast to learn why).
Enjoy! -@AlexSmithMD

You can also find us onYoutube!

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Transcript

Eric: Welcome to the GeriPal podcast. This is Eric Widera.

Alex: This is Alex Smith.

Eric: And Alex, I'm really excited about toda…

The Dangers of Fleet Enemas

The dangers of oral sodium phosphate preparations are fairly well known in the medical community. In 2006 the FDA issued it’s first warning that patients taking oral sodium phosphate preparations are at risk for potential for acute kidney injury. Two years later, over-the-counter preparations of these drugs were voluntarily withdrawn by the manufacturers. Those agents still available by prescription were given black box warnings mainly due to acute phosphate nephropathy that can result in renal failure, especially in older adults. Despite all this talk of oral preparations, little was mentioned about a sodium phosphate preparation that is still available over-the-counter – the Fleet enema.

Why Oral Sodium Phosphate Preparations Are Dangerous

Before we go into the risks of Fleet enemas, lets spend just a couple sentences on why oral sodium phosphate preparations carry significant risks. First, oral sodium phosphate preparations can cause significant fluid shifts within the colon …

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